


how not to raise a kitten by m. murdock

by supinetothestars



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Jeff the Land Shark, M/M, Obligatory They Adopt A Kitten AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23563294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supinetothestars/pseuds/supinetothestars
Summary: When Matt Murdock realizes with horror that he and Foggy have accidentally adopted a stray kitten, he goes to some of his friends, including Wade Wilson, Peter Parker, Jessica Jones, and Danny Rand, for advice. The result ranges from pleasantly helpful (Peter Parker) to disastrous (Wade Wilson). Featuring Gwenpool and her accomplice, Jeff the Land Shark, who are no longer allowed in the Murdock-Nelson residence for reasons related to a gallon of milk, a couch leg, and Daredevil’s suit cowl.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98
Collections: Team Red Mini Bang 2020





	how not to raise a kitten by m. murdock

It starts at exactly 6:17 P.M. on a Friday evening, when Matt comes home early from a night of uneventful patrolling to find Foggy sitting on the carpet holding a small rodent.

“I can explain,” is the first thing Foggy says, as Matt steps into the living room from the loft stairs. Matt unclips his helmet and sets it on the living room table. The apartment is in shambles. There’s a pile of towels over the carpet, and Matt can smell steam from a half-full tub in the bathroom that’s left a trail of water across the floor leading to where Foggy’s sitting. Matt stands there, mouth half-open, trying to make sense of the scene before him.

“Foggy,” Matt says. “What -”

“I found her in the street,” Foggy bursts out. “Like, on the curb. She could’ve been hit by a car, Matt, she could’ve gotten run over or - or fallen in the gutter - seriously, do you know how scary gutters are when you’re five inches tall because I don’t but it sounds pretty freaking scary and I haven’t even watched _It_ and I know you haven’t so you can’t really understand how scared she was, Matt, but she’s so tiny and all alone so I had to help her -”

“ _Foggy_ ,” Matt interrupts, cutting Foggy’s rambling off before it loses focus. “Foggy, I’m not mad.”

“- Oh,” Foggy responds, sounding caught off guard. “Oh, okay. You looked kind of mad, is all.”

“I’m just confused,” Matt says, and right on cue the rodent curled up in Foggy’s hands starts making an odd rumbling noise. “Foggy, that is a rat. Rats do not need rescuing. They’re supposed to stay on the street.”

Foggy’s initial response is an odd momentary silence accompanied by a slight tilt of the head, as though Matt has just said something very odd. As it drags on, Matt starts to grow uncomfortable, feeling that he’s just pointed out a perfectly reasonable fact and Foggy’s silence is unnecessary. He steps around the living room table. “ _What?_ Foggy, rats are covered in diseases, they eat garbage, I don’t understand why -”

“No, no,” Foggy interrupts. “That’s not what - Matt, this is a kitten.”

Ah.

That does make more sense.

Foggy, sensing his embarrassment, rushes to keep talking.

“I don’t think she’s wild, because she’s really friendly, but-” He cuts himself off mid-sentence to gasp as the kitten - not rodent, evidently - stretches in his hands and flops over a little, purring harder. Matt wrinkles his nose and resists the urge to step away.

“ _Ohmygodyou’reliterallysopreciousIloveyousomuch,”_ Foggy whispers, as the very small bundle of fur in his hands climbs out of them onto the carpet below. It takes a few tremulous steps before deciding walking isn’t worth the work and sitting down again. “ _MattI’minloveshe’ssoadorableohmygod.”_

“Um,” Matt says. Foggy scoots closer to the kitten and then glances up at Matt. “Matt, come sit down. I washed her and everything, I swear.” He grabs Matt’s hand and pulls him over. Matt, reluctant, sits, and Foggy picks up the purring ball of fluff and places it in Matt’s hands.

Almost immediately, Matt drops it, thankfully only an inch or so onto the padded carpet. It just sort of rolls out of his palm and faceplants on the ground below. Foggy makes a tutting noise. “ _Matt,_ that’s not how you hold a cat.” He picks it up, holding it up to his face and making cooing noises. 

“I don’t see how it can be that complicated,” Matt says.

Foggy ignores him and gently sets the cat down. “I adopted a cat when I got out of college, remember?”

Matt does remember. It had left fur all over the apartment.

“I loved that cat,” Foggy sighs. “Best friend I’ve ever had.”

Matt is silent in response Foggy glances at him and coughs awkwardly. “...Figuratively, I mean.” He smiles as the cat climbs onto his lap and sits there, purring.

“Foggy,” Matt says gently, and Foggy glances up. Something in Matt’s voice makes his smile fade a little, for which Matt feels a pang of guilt, but. It needs to be said. “We can’t...keep this cat. You know that, right? It could have owners who are looking for it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Foggy clears his throat. “Of course. And I’ll - I’ll go out and put up signs and stuff tomorrow, tell the shelter. But just for a few days, Matt. Until we find her owners.”

“Yeah, okay,” Matt says. “Just a few days.”

~~~

The next day, when Foggy leaves the apartment to go plaster up a few missing posters and notify the animal shelter, Matt is left alone with what he’s deemed to call Cat on the basis of accuracy. Cat is surprisingly pleasant company; she’s quiet, curled up in the bathroom in a cardboard box full of scrap blankets which Foggy had assembled for her. Her breathing, so faint it’s barely there, serves as a kind of pleasant white noise for Matt to focus on, a neutral hum that he tunes into when the roar of the city becomes too much. Matt sits at the table, working on a legal case, and finds his coexistence with the creature sleeping in his bathroom to be peaceful at the least.

~~~

Matt has a problem, and that problem is Foggy.

Foggy is in love. Deeply so. Irreparably so. He’s taken to holding Cat on his lap while he studies for legal cases. He’s so averse to standing when she falls asleep there that he keeps asking Matt to fetch stuff for him from six feet away because movement could wake her up. Cat herself has settled in quite nicely, only peeing on Matt’s bathroom towels twice before she starts to use the new litter-box.

And against his better instincts, Matt finds that he doesn’t hate Cat’s company as much as he expected. She’s a lot bigger, once she’s dry, not so much of a kitten as they thought - into adolescence, at least - and so is able to jump up on the table and sit on his computer while he works. At one point, she jumps up while he’s studying and climbs onto his shoulders before he can nudge her away, winding around his neck like some sort of airplane pillow and settling there. Matt, alarmed, calls upon Foggy to help. 

“Aww,” Foggy says. “Matt, she loves you.”

“I think she might be trying to choke me, Foggy,” Matt responds, alarmed.

“Naw. They do that. Just keep reading, it’s fine.”

It is fine, surprisingly; she starts purring after a little while, and the warm rumbling sound helps him concentrate on something besides the yellings of passerby on the street below their window.

  
  


They don’t talk about it. After all, Matt never set a deadline for when they had to turn Cat into a shelter, and no one’s called to ask for her returned, so life just sort of adjusts to the change, and it’s been a week before Matt even realizes they weren’t supposed to have kept her this long. Her presence becomes so natural that it’s next Saturday before Matt realizes that the time to return her to the shelter was long past overdue, an epiphany that comes when he almost trips over her on his way to Daredevilling at the middle of the night.

~~~

“Wade, I need help,” Matt says, as soon as Wade answers his door. Wade, bleeding heavily from a knife lodged in his arm, gives him a blank stare from behind the gaping white eyes of the Deadpool mask.

“It’s three in the morning, fucker,” Wade says, and slams the door. Matt sticks his foot in the doorframe and keeps it from closing. “Hey, let me in. You’re not sleeping anyways.”

“I don’t talk to people after two A.M.,” Wade says, pushing on the door. “It’s part of my moral code.”

“Two weeks ago you rammed on my window so hard you broke the glass at four thirty-two in the morning on a Tuesday night,” Matt says. “Let me in, you rat bastard, you’re crushing my foot.”

Wade, sighing heavily, relents. Matt tosses aside the Daredevil helmet as soon as Wade closes the door behind him and tries not to choke as he steps into Wade’s apartment. It smells like old blood, rotting food, and weeks-old trash. Only the couch is free from clutter, and as evidenced by the fresh bloodstain spread across the cushions, Wade was laying on it before Matt’s interruption.

“This better be good, Matty,” Wade says. “I’m telling you, there better be a mass murderer holed up in your apartment or something. I don’t fuck around with my carefully scheduled two A.M. Hallmark movie viewing.”

“I accidentally adopted a cat, Wade,” Matt says, with the air of someone breaking the news of a dearest relative’s death. 

Wade tilts his head at Matt and makes a face of confusion below the mask. Matt, running an anxious hand through his hair, steps over a pile of automatic weaponry to sit on the bloodstained couch. 

“Foggy brought home this cat,” he said, “and we were just going to keep it for a few days, but it keeps sitting on my head when I’m trying to sleep and purring.”

“Oh, Matt,” Wade says, exasperated, with something like affection in his voice.

“I can’t adopt a _cat_ , Wade,” Matt says. “I mean, I keep accidentally dropping it when I try to pick it up, and it hides my socks under the couch.”

“So don’t adopt it,” Wade responds. “I don’t see the problem.” He opens the fridge and gently pushing aside the human liver that’s wrapped in tin foil to grab a churro from the pile.

“Exactly!” Matt says. “So I won’t adopt it. I don’t have to adopt it. Just because it sits on my laptop whenever I try to study for a legal case and thinks the Daredevil batons are a string toy doesn’t mean I have to adopt it. So what if it smells like Foggy now because it keeps climbing into the laundry bin and sleeping there? I don’t have to do anything with it.”

Wade studies Matt for a moment. “I dunno, buddy,” he says. “Sounds to me like you’re having a bit of a crisis here.”

Matt deflates. “I want to adopt it, Wade,” he confesses. “It’s really warm and loud.”

“You hate it when _I’m_ loud, but now this little demon creature is loud and it’s somehow a good thing, huh?”

“Yes, exactly,” Matt says.

Wade sighs. “Look, I’m still not seeing the problem. Keep it or don’t, I don’t give a shit.”

“I don’t know anything about cats, Wade,” Matt says. 

“Read a book.”

“Wade, when I was a teenager I accidentally killed my foster sibling’s pet fish,” Matt says, standing abruptly and pacing around to stand in front of the counter.

“Matt, when I was a teenager I accidentally killed my father,” Wade says. “Get over yourself. It likes you. Foggy knows cat things. How else could he keep you alive? You’rejust like those pissy street cats that attack me when I land in dumpsters. You’ll be fine.”

“I can’t even hold it right.”

“Holding cats is simple, Matty. Just like holding a shark.”

Matt pauses, thinks for a moment, and frowns. “How...do you hold...a shark?”

Wade grins the kind of grin that tells Matt it’s time to leave. “Hold on, I’ll call Gwennie, she’ll show you -”

“Nah, I’m good,” Matt says. Wade’s already dialing the phone, so Matt grabs his cowl and dives out the open window.

~~~

He tries to visit Jessica Jones next. It’s no good. She’s at her office still, drunk as a mad hatter, sprawled across her desk with a bottle of whisky. The window’s open. Matt slips in, dark as she shadows in which the office is cast, and has to dodge to avoid being punched through the plaster wall before she recognizes him. He knows it’s no good from the moment he arrives. She’s got an hoarse note to her voice and her clothes clearly haven’t been washed in days. Matt gently pries the alcohol bottle from her hand and tosses it out the window before making his escape; there’s no point trying to help her when she’s gotten like that. 

He makes a note to come tomorrow, when the shadows will have faded from the corners of the office and the empty bottles piled under the table will have been tossed away. Then, perhaps, he can help, but right now he is just another shadow.

~~~

  
  


Danny Rand’s already up. Of course he is, he’s Danny; sleep is reserved for unscheduled naps in the middle of the day, or for draping himself over friend’s couches during parties and ruining the mood with a poorly timed snooze. Night, on the other hand, is for business, vigilante work, and meditation.

When Matt finds him he’s occupied with the latter, sitting criss-cross on a bamboo mat in the middle of an empty room of his penthouse apartment. Matt has to circle the building twice to find the right window, and even when it does, it takes five minutes for him to kick the glass loud enough to shake Danny out of his stupor.

At the fifth minute, Danny starts violently and cracks open an eye. Matt, hanging with both from the fire escape on the floor above, is starting to seriously regret not just going back to bed. But no, he can’t go back to bed, not in the midst of a crisis; not when he’d have to face the current source of all his earthly troubles and anxieties in the form of a small but of fluff stuck to a set of bones.

Danny rushes over and helps him in, apologizing for the wait. Matt, shaking out the soreness in his arms still left over from dangling from the fire escape, brushes aside his apologies and invites himself into Danny’s kitchen, where he selects a beer from the refrigerator's available assortment while Danny trails behind him like a lonely puppy.

“How’s life?” Matt asks abruptly, to disrupt the awkward silence. It’s pretty effective; conversing with Danny is always easy. He has so much to talk about and such a genuine goodwill around him that really you just need to let him talk and nod along at all the right places. There’s always enough going on with Danny to fill the awkward cracks and crevices in conversation.

But after monologuing for the better part of ten minutes about work, his vigilante job, Luke Cage, and his trouble getting the mail sent to the right address, Danny pauses to ask Matt how he’s doing. Matt drums his fingers on the almost-empty beer while mulling over his response.

“I’m doing alright,” he says, after a beat. “Law practice keeping me busy. Foggy and Karen and I, you know, we’ve gotten some good cases come our way lately, so it’s going pretty well for the firm.”

“How’s it going with you and Foggy?”

“Good - wonderful, really. Actually, something happened recently, wanted to ask you advice. You ever had a cat?”

“No,” Danny responds. “We weren’t allowed pets, at the monastery - wait, hold on, are you thinking about getting a cat?”

“We kind of already got one,” Matt says awkwardly. “Sort of. Temporarily -”

“ _Oh my God,”_ Danny says, and Matt does a double take at the sheer excitement in his voice. “You have a cat? Can I see it? Can I pet it? Can I play with it? I love cats, you have to let me cuddle it, oh my God -”

Danny’s so genuinely delighted that Matt can’t bring himself to tell him that Cat hasn’t actually been adopted yet. Danny, as always, goes through life with the pure excitement of a child experiencing life’s wonders for the first time. 

~~~

The next morning, as Foggy’s looking through the fridge in preparation for a trip to the grocery store, there’s a loud rapping from the door. Cat, who was rolling about on the carpet with a bit of dryer lint she found in the laundry basket, hides under the couch.

Matt answers the door. There’s a girl standing there in a mask, wearing armor oddly shaped like a bathing suit. She’s holding something under her arm- a strange four-legged lizard-like creature that smells like saltwater.

“Heyyyy,” she says, and grins. “Daredevil, right? I’m Gwenpool-”

The sound of the name _Daredevil_ hits Matt like a bucket of ice water and he grabs Gwenpool by the arm, yanking her into the hallway and slamming the door shut. She tugs her arm away and steps backwards, cheery grin replaced with obvious annoyance. “ _Hey_ , don’t do that.”

“Everything alright, Matty?” Foggy calls. “Who’s there?” 

“Why’d you call me that name?” Matt asks quickly. “Who sent you here?”

“Wade Wilson, jackass,” Gwenpool says. “And I’m going you a favor, so kindly don’t be such a bitch about it.” She whirls around and heads for the kitchen, the lizard creature under her arm panting happily. 

Matt follows her, running an anxious hand through his hair. He remembers Wade saying something about Gwenpool, but didn’t think he was _serious_ . It’s _Wade,_ after all.

Foggy’s standing behind the counter, and when he sees Gwenpool, he says, “Woah, hi -” and then lets out a startled shriek and drops the gallon of milk he’s holding. It breaks on impact and the milk gushes out over the wood floor. 

“Holy shit, Foggy,” Matt gasps, starting forward to help him. “Are you okay?”

Foggy just makes a strangled sound and points at Gwen’s lizard. “Matt, that’s a _shark. With legs.”_

Almost on cue, the (apparently) leg-shark wriggles out from under Gwen’s arm and lands on the floor with a loud thud. Tongue hanging out excitedly, it makes a dash for the couch.

Cat, standing on the back of the couch with her tail up and her fur fluffed, hisses.

“Damn, you made me drop Jeff,” Gwen complains, making no move to catch Jeff. Foggy covers his mouth in what appears to be genuine speechless horror. Matt, thinking quickly, walks to the bedroom and closes the door.

Jeff is flailing around on the carpet and pouncing on dust bunnies with the excitement of a child chasing bubbles. Matt jumps violently backwards when it swerves and dives at his feet, and he realizes with significant horror that the shark has him cornered against the wall.

Gwen whistles - “Here, boy!” - and the shark whirls around and charges towards the kitchen. Foggy stares down at it with horror etched across his face and makes no move to flee.

“Aren’tcha gonna offer me something to drink or anything?” Gwen complains. “You two are terrible hosts.” She trudges over to the fridge, not seeming to care that her boots are sinking into a solid centimetre or two of spilled milk. “If both of you are going to be rude, I’ll just get something to eat myself.”

She starts rummaging through their fridge, standing on her toes to see into the very top shelf and pushing aside the piles of lettuce in search of something more appetizing. Matt slowly detaches himself from the bedroom door and takes a calming breath. 

Gwen finds an old chicken leg on a plate and tosses it to Jeff, who leaps up, catches it in midair, and swallows it whole, bone and all, with a hideous crunching sound. She grins. “Good boy!” 

Foggy presses against the counter and inches out of the kitchen. As soon as he’s out he backs up against the couch, where Cat is standing fur fluffed and snarling like a she-devil. Cat jumps up onto Foggy’s shoulder, where she perches unsteadily, claws digging into his shirt. Her tail sticks out like a bottlebrush.

Gwen, apparently frustrated with the extent of the lettuce occupying their fridge, starts tossing onto the floor. Jeff treats it like a game. He’ll jump to catch the lettuce, shake his head violently until it rips into little bits that crumble all over the already milk-stained floor, then sit expectantly and wait for more. After a minute of this Gwen, at last, seizes a cup of yogurt and closes the fridge, only to start opening each of the cabinets in succession and rifling through them.

Matt walks up to stand next to Foggy. “What do we do?” Foggy asks, voice tremulous. Matt swallows and tries to think of a solution that won’t end in his losing a limb. Gwen’s slamming the cabinets so hard that she’s dislodging plates from their racks, causing them to fall from the cabinets and shatter across the floor. She finds a bag of popcorn in one cabinet and triumphantly shoves the entire bag into the microwave.

Jeff gets bored with the game of further breaking what falls from the cabinets and runs back over to the living room. Matt and Foggy both yell and leap back in fear. It tries to dive under the couch, only to get stuck halfway there and flail desperately, stubby little back legs kicking the air furiously as it tries to dislodge itself. That unsuccessful, it twists around far enough to chomp down on the wooden couch leg, tugging furiously enough that it tears the leg free. The newly three-legged couch tips further and Jeff squeals.

Gwen, hearing the bang, whirls around and sees Jeff stuck under the couch. 

“Don’t just _stand_ there,” she snaps at Matt and Foggy, walking over to the couch and trying to lift the side nearest Jeff. “Help me get him out!”

Matt is perfectly inclined to let the shark rot and die under that couch, but the philanthropist in Foggy is making an appearance, because he moves around and helps Gwen lift the couch. Jeff springs free and immediately flees into the open bathroom with what could be either excitement or terror.

Gwen drops the couch and skips back to the kitchen, where she resumes her rampage of the cabinets and cutlery. She’s just filled the tea kettle with orange juice and cranked up the stove when there’s a loud crash from the bathroom, followed by a whimpering. Jeff comes barrelling out the bathroom door, stubby feet windmilling across the carpet, and leaps onto the living room table with its beady black eyes wide in apparent fear. It stands there, frozen still, for a full minute before relaxing enough to plop down onto its stomach. 

As Gwen pours a bowl of cereal and starts salting it, Jeff spots Matt’s Daredevil cowl laying on the other end of the living room table. Before Matt can move to stop it, it’s seized the cowl in its jaws and chomped hard enough that a loud cracking echoes through the apartment.

“OKAY,” Matt announces loudly. “I THINK IT’S TIME FOR YOU BOTH TO LEAVE NOW.” 

Gwen glances up from where she’s about to pour her boiling orange juice into the salted cereal, horrified. “What? I’ve hardly even got started - Wade said I needed to show you how to hold a shark - I’m not _leaving!”_

“That’s alright,” Matt says, voice still a notch or two louder than necessary to compensate for his prior cowardice. “No shark holding necessary. It’s been a pleasure. Please leave my apartment now.”

Gwen slams down the orange juice kettle and stomps over to stand in front of Matt, perching on her tiptoes to properly get in his face. “Excuse _you_ , Mister Devil Sir, I did not come here all the way from _Queens_ just for you to kick me out of your apartment when I haven’t even demonstrated proper shark feeding procedure yet-”

“Oooookay,” Matt says, taking a step back out of caution and grabbing Gwen by the arm. “That’s enough, terribly sorry, time to go.” Disregarding her attempts to detach him, he drags her into the entrance hallway. Jeff jumps off the table and follows them into the hallway, tilting its head at Matt - how, Matt’s not sure, because it doesn’t seem to have a neck. Gwen leans down to pick it up, clutching it like a child with a precious doll.

Matt presents the open door. 

Gwen flips up her middle finger and stomps out of the apartment.

~~~

Matt and Foggy don’t clean up right away. There is, after all, an argument to be made that they have just had a experience traumatic on the level of witnessing a some kind of natural disaster; Matt is overwhelmed by sheer horror whenever he smells the milky footprints tracked across the carpet. The two of them spend a while just sitting on the couch and holding hands.

After a few minutes Matt calls Wade in an attempt to express his frustrations.

“I thought she’d be helpful!” Wade defends, indignant at Matt’s fury. “If you’d just given her a chance, you did ask me for help, you know-”

“Wade,” Matt says through gritted teeth, “she broke all our plates.”

“And you think a cat won’t do that? They’re monsters!”

Matt glances at Cat, whose ear is poking out of a pile of pillows, and dismisses Wade’s statement as an inaccurate generalization.

“Wade,” Matt says. “You simply _cannot_ give out my address and identity without my permission! I don’t think you understand how serious I’m being right now-”

“It’s just Gwennie, she’s basically my alter ego,” Wade protests. “I trust her!”

“Well _I_ don’t!” Matt hisses. “She _boils orange juice, Wade -”_

“Well maybe it tastes good boiled! You don’t know it doesn’t!”

“ _SHE PUT IT IN CEREAL!”_

“THAT IS A PERFECTLY VALID BREAKFAST OPTION.”

“SHE MELTED OUR BAG OF POPCORN ALL OVER OUR MICROWAVE!”

It’s not until Foggy puts his hand on Matt’s shoulder and squeezes that Matt realizes his voice has climbed a few octaves. He knows, logically, that arguing with Wade isn’t worth it. Wade is infuriatingly good at believing himself the winner of lost arguments. This in mind, Matt pulls the phone away from his ear as Wade yells something incomprehensible on the other end and hangs up.

“I’m really sorry, Foggy,” Matt says softly. 

“Hey,” Foggy responds, leaning over the pile of cushions and Cat to give Matt a one-armed hug. “No apologies. This is all on Wade.”

“I’m never talking to him again,” Matt pledges.

“I highly doubt that, Matty.”

“It’s true. I’m going to block his number and kick him in the nuts if he ever comes near me again.”

“Whatever you say, hun.”

“I am, really.” Matt’s braces to elaborate on that point, but pauses when he hears footsteps echoing down from the roof. He stops, stiffens, and feels the start of an adrenaline rush as the footsteps draw nearer. The door to the staircase opens.

“Mister Murdock?”

His alarm drains away, replaced with cold relief. It’s Peter, lurking just above the staircase, heartbeat still pattering from a swing across the city and the smell of the wind above the river still settling into his suit. He’s still, waiting for a response.

“Hey, Peter,” Matt sighs. “You can come out.”

Peter audibly perks up and steps out onto the staircase. “Hey Mister Murdock,” he says. “Sorry for barging in, you told me to come today, I tried to text but you didn’t respond -” He pauses, tilts his head. “Woah, um, your apartment -”

“Yeah, we know,” Matt says. “Trust me, we know.”

“Um, okay,” Peter says, recovering quickly. “Wow, that looks like a mess. Can I ask what happened?”

“Gwenpool happened.”

“Oh.” Peter scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Like, Kate’s friend? Huh. I mean, I’m sorry that happened. I haven’t met Gwenpool, but she sounds like a handful.”

“You could say that.”

“Well, I mean, we were gonna go patrolling, but since I’m here, do you want me to help you clean up?” Peter offers. “I don’t have to be home until seven, Aunt May and I are having dinner.”

This is why Matt worries about Peter. For one, hanging out with Matt Murdock is notoriously bad for heart rate.

Peter’s just such a good person. So genuine. Whereas most days Matt and Wade can hardly remember how to be people.

They take repairs one at a time. Starting with the kitchen floor, where milk is still in a puddle on the floor and dripping from the wood cabinets. Shattered glass and ceramic from the broken dishware are everywhere. Peter throws towels over the milk and Foggy puts on a pair of boots to vacuum up the glass and lettuce. Hazards clear, Matt makes a beeline for the microwave, because it’s been oozing a thick and toxic scent of burning chemicals. When Matt opens it it belches out a puff of acrid smoke. Sure enough, the bag of pre-popped popcorn that Gwen had tried to cook was not only burnt but melted, the plastic pooled over the bottom of the microwave and splattered over the walls. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Foggy confesses. “It looks poisonous.”

“It’s just melted plastic,” Peter says doubtfully. “It can’t be that bad, right?”

There’s a pause. “Let’s just throw a towel over it,” Matt suggests, and no one protests.

It’s not until an hour later, when most of the apartment is back in order - the lettuce gone, the kettle cleaned, the milky footprints scrubbed from the carpet - that Peter catches a glimpse of Cat. She blends into the shadows around strangers, after all, keeping glued to walls or lurking under furniture. But as Matt is sitting on the living room table, worrying over his cracked Daredevil cowl, Peter stretches out on the carpet to scroll through his phone. He’s greeted by a loud hiss as Cat dutifully defends her post under the couch.

Peter drops his phone onto his nose in surprise before pushing it aside and staring at Cat, eyes wide and pulse racing. His mouth hangs open for a moment before exclaiming, “Mister _Murdock_ , there’s a _RAT_ under your _COUCH!”_

Matt blinks at him and grins. “Foggy!” He calls. “Hear that? Knew I was right! It really is a rat!”

Foggy pokes his head out of the bathroom, where he’s cleaning up the shampoo bottles Jeff popped. “Matt, don’t be an ass. Peter, that’s a cat. I found her in a gutter and she’s staying with us for a little while.”

“You don’t have to phrase it like she’s renting an apartment or something,” Matt says. “Not like she’s giving us money to stay here. More of a stowaway than a lodger.”

“Oh my God, you didn’t tell me you had a cat, Mister Murdock,” Peter gushes, delighted. “I love cats!”

“Rat,” Matt mutters.

Peter shifts into a crouch a few paces away from the couch and holds his hand out towards Cat, whispering quiet nonsense to her under his breath. It takes a moment, but whatever he’s doing is working, because after a moment she steps out from under the couch and rubs her forehead against his outstretched hand.

“Heyyy, kitty,” Peter whispers. “Nice to meet you, sweetie, um, I don’t know your name, Matt, what’s her name?”

“Cat.”

“It is not,” comes Foggy’s voice from the bathroom. “We haven’t named her yet.”

“Cat’s a perfectly respectable name.”

Peter literally tut-tuts in disapproval the way Matt’s grandmother used to. “I can help you come up with a name,” he says, sitting down properly and scratching Cat’s chin. “I have so many. I think about what I’d name a cat all the _time_. Like, um, Fitzwilliam, like Fitzwilliam Darcy. Or Vader. Or - now, I’ve thought about this one, it’s what Ned and I agreed we’d name a snake if we ever got one, you know, like in a few years, but you can use it if you want - Hypatia, like the mathematician, because she was badass.”

Matt frowns at him. “When did you start cursing?”

“I’m sixteen, I can curse,” Peter says, but he sounds regretful all the same. 

“God, I thought you were twelve,” Matt says, but he’s smiling, and the sunlight through the window is warm on the back of his neck, and Cat has started purring, so it’s alright.

It’s alright.

~~~

Another two days pass before he finally decides to keep her.

It happens like this: it’s morning, early morning, the kind of morning hour where as Matt limps across his apartment building’s roof to return to his apartment, he can feel the faintest hint of sunlight dusting across his bruised and bleeding cheek, and through the newly repaired plastic of the mask he hears alarm clocks, all across the city, start to ring, and he holds his ribs tight because they might be bruised, or it might just be the cold biting against lungs and burning on the way down his throat. He’s injured, and he limps a little on his way down the stairs, but not too much - even though it hurts - because Foggy’s still asleep, and Matt would rather it stay that way until he’s cleaned the blood from his knuckles and his cheek. So the apartment is quiet and empty when Matt sits on the couch, alone but for his ragged and pained breathing, the sound hanging thick and heavy in the silence like fog on a cold, wet morning, until another sound becomes audible, and it’s not the gentle rhythm of Foggy’s heartbeat in the bedroom.

It’s Cat. She’s purring, butting her head against the legs of the couch, pleased to see Matt, perhaps, or at least to have company. As Matt sets his helmet quietly on the living room table and peels off what he can of the Daredevil armor, Cat rubs up against his leg and purrs so loudly it seems as though Matt should be able to feel the vibrations shaking the floor. He reaches down to pet her and the sound grows impossibly louder.

There are footsteps from the bedroom. Foggy, standing in the doorway to the bedroom, folds his arms against his chest as if he’s hugging himself.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” Matt says softly.

Foggy doesn’t say anything for a moment. Bows his head, just a little, like he’s watching morning shadows creep across the floor. “I worry about you, Matt.”

“I know,” Matt says, and hates himself for not saying more.

There’s another lull, gentle silence but for the heartbeats and the water in the pipes - and Cat takes advantage of the pause in conversation to leap onto Matt’s lap and nudge at his hands. He scratches her behind the ears.

“Hey, Foggy?” Matt asks. “Want to adopt a cat?”

Foggy smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Art by the lovely [deniigiq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/)!


End file.
